Dead trees, their roots weakened by lack of water, have blown over in the winds. Their broken limbs litter dirt fairways, empty ponds, and once lush greens. Weather-beaten flags marking the holes flap solemnly in the August heat.

What has happened to the golf course, just a few years after it was redesigned for a reported $27 million, is not just a story of one more dream dashed by the Great Recession.

It’s a tale of water and desperate homeowners whose properties have devalued in price by as much as 70 percent in the past five years.

Some believe the future of Rams Hill could determine the fate of Borrego Springs, the small desert town in northeast San Diego County completely surrounded by Anza-Borrego State Park.

The once-stunning golf course is part of a 3,000 acre master-planned community made up of six small subdivisions, a luxury oasis in a desert hamlet dreaming of becoming a smaller alternative to Palm Springs. About 350 homes have already been built in Rams Hill — ranging from spacious estates to small retirement and vacation homes — with room for hundreds more.

Up until four years ago, the course got its water from an on-site well drilled in 1985 by the development’s original owner. But in 2009 — in what amounted to a fire-sale by a subsequent owner, who lost millions in the real-estate bust — the well was sold for $1.1 million to the Borrego Water District.

The deal — which wasn’t disclosed to homeowners — included a condition that new wells could never be drilled on the property.

Residents were outraged when they learned what happened. Without affordable water, there’s no way to sustain the championship golf course winding though their housing development — a key feature of the resort lifestyle they bought into.

“We don’t know if (the sale of the well) was legal, but certainly morally it was wrong,” said Russ McMillan, who has lived part time at Rams Hills since 2007. “It ripped the heart out of the community.”

McMillan said Rams Hill was built with “an agreement that the water was to come to us in perpetuity. They somehow got around that. It doesn’t wash. The Borrego Water District, in our view, has an awful lot of mud on its feet.”

Water district officials are reluctant to comment on the matter because they’re now negotiating with a new Rams Hill owner — T2Borrego LLC, led by Rancho Santa Fe resident Bill Berkeley. Berkeley’s company bought the development July 2 for less then $1 million and inherited the water restrictions, as well as some substantial debt associated with the property.

He said that for the investment to be profitable, the golf course must come back to life. He’s been negotiating with the water district for roughly a year, long before he closed on the purchase of Rams Hill.

Water district officials referred all questions to attorney Lisa Foster, who issued the following statement: